


Slight Ligiments

by AraSigyrn



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:46:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Kink Bingo for the 'Mechanical/Technological' & 'Oral' squares.</p>
<p>"Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin." - Mary Shelley</p>
<p>Tony saves Pepper's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slight Ligiments

Tony can't be there for the actual operation.

He tries anyway because, come on, he's Tony Motherfucking Stark! This is his mansion/emergency hospital/place of last resort (Tony’s not sure which right now). There are no doors that should be closed to him! Director Fury, by way of Romanov, makes it very clear that this door right here is staying closed. God knows what Tony'd have done if Bruce - wonderful, _intelligent_ Bruce - hadn't suggested he get to take a front row seat in the viewing gallery.

Tony might have kissed him. There might even have been tongue and Bruce sputtering and Romanov going white and all the agents going for their guns but Tony doesn't notice, doesn't care. 

Because it's Pepper.

It's _his_ Pepper.

Lying on the table, ventilators rattling as they force air into her lungs, she's so pale that her hair looks as red and fake as a cherry slushie. She hasn't opened her eyes - not even when Tony was aggravating Fury and the entire Asgardian Royal Family - and Tony keeps making loud sounds despite the glares of the scrub-clad SHIELD drones and Pepper keeps not rolling her eyes or yelling at him or...or doing anything. 

Tony could handle it. Kinda. As long as he had something to do. 

When he was building the arc reactor, the new one with more safety features that the goddamn Pentagon, Tony could even forget. A few seconds where the work was its own reward (no, not really, he couldn't stop thinking about how Pepper was going to lecture him about profitability vs. fun even then). Being busy, holding Pepper's life in his hands; that isn't the problem. 

Saving lives is why Tony straps himself into newer better armor every day of the week.

He knows every wire in that reactor, every connector, every rivet, every weld by heart. He's spent every single second of the last three days making it perfect. He could name every single compound that went into the alloy. He's fucking imprinted it into his brain.

And yet, as he watches the reactor easing into place, just to the right of Pepper's heart, Tony can't remember a goddamn thing. Bruce - looking like a ghost in his pale blue scrubs with the harsh lights overhead - is staring intently down at her. He isn't looking at Tony. No-one's looking at Tony because Tony can't do anything.

Tony wants to thump the glass but even with most of his rational brain on standby, he knows better than to startle the Big Guy into making an appearance. He stares at the reactor, relearns every line of it as Bruce double-checks the output.

JARVIS, who has been muted since Day 1, obligingly brings up a full display. Tony is wired into every circuit of the reactor. He knows every fluctuation, knows the second that the reactor picks up the slack from Pepper's damaged nervous system, feeding the Chitauri shrapnel inside her. It's not the same as the electro-magnetic field keeping the shrapnel out of his heart but Tony still feels the tingle as the new reactor comes online.

He designed the port - drew the first sketches on the electrons in the air around him while JARVIS burnt out a processor trying to interpret them - and he watched Bruce slide the last surgical steel casing into place, so close to the window that he had to hold his breath so it wouldn't fog up the windows. 

"I didn't think I'd ever see the day the great Tony Stark lost it," Fury's voice comes from behind him.

"I haven't lost anything," Tony says, too fast and with a too-honest snap. He doesn't look around. He can see the status lights on the reactor flickering. He has to count them, has to be sure the pattern is just the reactor warming up. He wants Fury to go away. Now, please, because Fury isn’t one of those people who can keep Tony’s brain on one track and what Tony needs right now is someone to distract his over-analytical brain from this endless pattern. 

He can’t stop thinking about the reactor – his reactor – inside Pepper. His reactor. Tony can’t even keep the thought in the head without it slipping back out but he can’t leave it alone either. Pepper is good at this. Pepper can distract Tony from anything.

"Not yet," Fury comes to stand beside him and Tony sees his one eye overlaying one of the diagnostic displays. "Always an optimist."

"I'm a scientist," Tony says lamely. It's not like he expects Fury to understand what's going on here. The man's good. "I believe in what I can see." 

"Uh-huh," Fury folds his arms and Tony angles his head to focus past the reflection. He needs to see those diagnostics. "Banner says even he's not getting more than one word in ten on the specs of that thing."

"Really?" Tony peers closer. Is the right third light going amber?

"Uh-huh," Fury clears his throat. "The only reason we're letting you actually stick that doohickey into someone is that I know you'd blow this whole organization sky-high if I tried to stop you."

"Well, of course," Tony waves the words away. "This is Pepper. Pepper is not SHIELD's business."

Pepper's his business. What Pepper is to Tony, that's their business. No-one else understands; Cap - bless his little cotton socks - thinks they're this big romance. Thor talks approvingly of alliances and dedication and Natasha watches Tony like she can see through him. Bruce...Bruce might actually get it. He's lost his Betty after all and Tony sees the shadow of it every time Bruce looks at Pepper.

But Tony wouldn't be doing this for just anyone. He might for Rhodey because Rhodey can be relied upon to never ever bring it up. The reactors - they're Tony's greatest creation, the only creation he's never been comfortable letting other people poke around inside. He's never had any discomfort about keeping his work so close to his heart.

He watches as the reactor slides slowly into the port; Pepper's skin so pale that her freckles look like ink dots. The ventilator rattles and Tony tenses up. The whole theatre goes so quiet that Tony can actually hears the click of the reactor locking into place. There's a surge; Tony feels the tug through his ribcage, where his own reactor sits.

"-and it's looking good," Bruce is saying when Tony can focus again. "We're going to start shutting down the life support." 

"Crash team on standby," one of the SHIELD drones says and Tony breathes a little short and sharper as one by one, the machines power down. There's a second of numb silence and Pepper's chest rises and the reactor lights glow white. Bruce's shoulders drop by at least two inches and his hands are shaking a little as he drops surgical tools into a tray.

"All good," Bruce confirms. "Reaction is stable, vital signs are steadying."

Tony breathes out in a whoosh of air. Fury's gone and Tony wonders for a second when he left but then the orderlies are wheeling Pepper away and Tony's already hurrying after them. Pepper isn't awake and Bruce tells him that it could be a while before she does.

"Yeah, sure, I hear you," Tony waves his hands. "We'll do lunch or split the electron or something. I just need to-"

"I told them to get you a seat," Bruce grins that goofy little smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Figured you might want to stay for a bit."

"Yeah," Tony nods. "Just, you know, until she's ready to make me do all the paperwork." 

He sits down beside Pepper's bed and stares at her chest. This is not the first time he's done this, god knows. He wants to touch, fingers twitching restlessly in his lap and he's not entirely sure why it feels like something he shouldn't do. He darts a glance at Pepper's face and looks back at the glowing reactor.

He made that. He spent hours with that reactor, putting it together and shaping it and it's his work. His work in Pepper's chest and Tony thinks she'd laugh at him if she could hear him now and tell him that not everything is a grade-school innuendo and he looks at her face, lips slightly parted.

Tony loves Pepper's mouth. It's the most expressive part of her body, if you know what you're looking for. Tony spent four days once, estimating the pound-per-inch ratio of every lip compression and graphing her mood based on the ratio. It's about 81% accurate.

Normally, Tony would work up more detailed graphs but he's honest enough to admit that at least half the problem is that he keeps forgetting what he's doing and just watching Pepper smile. She's got other talents - ones that Tony doesn't mind bragging about or wouldn't if he could find male companions who aren't a) repressed 1940's/military good boys, b) seriously threatening to literally carry her off to Valhalla or c) more scared of Pepper than they are of him and therefore undependable.

Tony settles his elbows on the side of the bed and stares down at her. He can feel the faint hum of the reactor, barely noticeable even in the still silence of the High Dependency Unit. Tony's not actually sure when this became the HDU; the last time he'd looked, it had been a drawing room or a sitting room. The lights glow and Tony counts the minor pulsations of the light. They're not quite at the same tempo, falling in and out of synch.

"So," Tony says because Tony doesn't like silence. His voice is cracked and hoarse and he clears his throat a few times. "I hope you know that you only have a few days left on your sick leave, Ms Potts." 

He drums his fingers on the bedspread, waiting for an answer that isn't going to come.

"And you're leaving me unsupervised," he adds, because he's seen that revelation wake Pepper out of a dead sleep after fifty nine hours in the air and a four day meeting. Nothing. "So really, you only have yourself to blame."

Pepper's lips part slightly and Tony pauses expectantly. She breathes out and Tony slumps at little into the seat. 

"You are giving me all sorts of ideas," Tony says. "And, not to point fingers here, but I'm not the one who-" his voice wavers a little and Tony clears his throat, "who spent our anniversary fighting Chitauri with a pepper spray and a tazer. One of Hammer's tazers, no less." 

He's watching her mouth and there's a hint of something that might be a smile. 

"Which, let's be clear here, is hurtful," Tony strokes his fingers up the inside of her wrist. "I am sincerely, genuinely hurt but I am also being the bigger man. You are going to expected to make this up to me, just so you know." 

Pepper's reactor is glowing a little brighter and Tony touches the tips of his fingers to the clear shielding and feels the hum. The lingering thrill is still there and he can feel it, modulated by Pepper's heartbeat. He can see it in his head, Pepper's blood and the steady thrum of power flowing along her nervous system and his reactor sitting at the heart.

"Also," Tony adds. "I am officially not the strangest person in this relationship. Most women would have been happy with a ring."

He pauses, feels the muscles twitch in her forearm. "Or at least would have been conscious for the proposal. It's fine, by the way, I answered on your behalf. It was beautiful. I cried, I cried on your behalf. As I said, it was beautiful."

"Tony," Pepper's head rolls and heavy eyes blink at him. Tony smiles. Then Pepper licks at her lips, tiny kitten licks that make Tony shift uncomfortably in his chair. He has a sharp memory of how those little flicks feel against his cock. He clears his throat and her hand catches his. "You cannot propose to me while I'm unconscious, Tony. No."

"Too late," Tony kisses her. "It was beautiful."

"To-ny," Pepper breathes, blinking. "If you want to propose to me, I'm expecting a nice dinner and a really big rock."

"Not a problem," Tony kisses her again. "Halley's Comet should be coming in range of the Stark Satellites in a year or two." 

"A good proposal would," Pepper licks her lips again and Tony looks up from her mouth to see the fond crease at the corner of her eyes as her lips curve into a fond smile. "Be grounds for some...serious celebration."

Tony's eyes drop to her mouth again before he can catch himself. Pepper draws her tongue across her lower lip deliberately and Tony laughs, delighted.

"Let me just put a call into NASA,” he smiles and kisses her again.


End file.
